STS031 LESSON 3

THE GOOD LIFE

What is meant by good life?

 Living in comfort and luxury with few problems or worries.

 Characterized by happiness from living and doing well
 Content

ARISTOTLE

- Ancient Greek philosopher, known for his natural philosophy, logic and political theory
- One of the greatest thinkers in the history of western science and philosophy, making contributions to logic, metaphysics,
mathematics, physics, biology, botany, ethics, politics, agriculture, medicine, dance, and theatre.
- First to classify areas of human knowledge into distinct disciplines such as mathematics, biology, and ethics.
- Founder of the Lyceum, the first scientific institute, based in Athens, Greece
- One of the strongest advocates of a liberal arts education, which stresses the education of the whole person, including one’s
moral character, rather than merely learning a set of skills.

Practical Science (Ethics and Politics) = “GOOD”

Theoretical Science (Logic, Biology, Physics, Metaphysics) = “TRUTH”

- First philosopher who approached the problem of reality from a “scientific” lens
- End goal of life: HAPPINESS

ARISTOTLE’S VIEW OF GOOD LIFE

- The activity of the soul in accordance with virtue

- Believed that good for humans is the maximum realization of what was unique to humans
- The good for humans was to reason well
- The task of reason was to teach humans how to act virtuously, and the exercise faculties in accordance with virtue.

HAPPINESS TO ARISTOTLE

- “Happiness depends on ourselves”

- Central purpose of human life and a goal in itself
- Depends on the cultivation of virtue
- A genuinely happy life required the fulfillment of a broad range of conditions, including physical as well as mental well-
being.

PLATO

- “the task of understanding the things in the world runs parallel with the job of truly getting into what will make the soul
flourish”
- Involves in living in harmony with one’s inner nature and understanding the true nature of reality
- “man must seek to understand himself”
- “existing itself by itself”

WHAT IS EUDIMONIA?

- Came from the Greek word eu meaning “good” and daimon meaning “spirit”
- Refers to the good life marked by happiness and excellence
- Flourishing life filled with meaningful endeavors that empower the human person to be the best version of himself/herself

HAPPINESS AS THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF HUMAN EXISTENCE

- Happiness is a final end or goal that encompasses the totality of one’s life
- It is not something that can be gained or lost in a few hours, like pleasurable sensations
- It is more like the ultimate value of your life as lived up to this moment, measuring how well you have lived up to your full
potential as a human being

ARISTOTLE VERSUS PLATO “REALITY”

Aristotle – claiming that this world is all there is to it and that this world is the only reality we can all access.
Plato – things in this world are not real and are only copies of the real in the world of forms

ARISTOTLE VERSUS PLATO “CHANGE”

Plato – two realities: WORLD OF FORMS and WORLD OF MATTER

World of Forms – things are copies of the ideal and the models

World of Matter – things are changing and impermanent

Aristotle – there is no reality over and above what the senses can perceive

- Change is a process that is inherent in things

- Every human being moves according to some end
- Action is a function of the purpose (telos)
- END = happiness or human flourishing

HAPPINESS AS THE GOAL OF A GOOD LIFE

John Stuart Mill

Declared the Greatest Happiness principle in the 18 th century.

- “action is right as far as it maximizes the attainment of happiness for the greatest number of people”
- “individual happiness of each individual should be prioritized and collectively dictates the kind of action that should be
endorsed”
- Pronouncements against mining
- The ethical is, of course, meant to lead us to the good life and happy life

VIRTUE/S

- Behavior showing high moral standards

- “paragon of virtue”
- Synonyms: goodness, virtuousness, righteousness, morality, ethicalness, uprightness, upstandingness, integrity, dignity,
rectitude, honesty, honorableness, honorability, honor, incorruptibility…

THE VIRTUES:

Intellectual Virtue

- Theoretical wisdom (thinking and truth)

- Practical wisdom
- Understanding. Experience and time are necessary requirements for the development of intellectual virtue

Moral Virtue

- Controlled by practical wisdom (ability to make right judgment)

- Owed its development to how one nurtured it as habit
- Can be learned

NICOMACHEAN ETHICS 2:1

Virtue, then, being of two kinds, intellectual virtue in the main owes its birth and growth in teaching (for its reason it requires
experience and time). While moral virtue comes about as a result of habit

NICOMACHEAN ETHICS 2:2

All human activities aim at some good. Every art and human inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at
some good; and for this reason the good has been rightly declared as that at which all things aim

MATERIALISM (Leucippus and Democritus)

- Only material entities matter

- Matter is what makes us attain happiness
- Atomos or seeds
- The world, including human beings, is made up of matter
- Atomos from the things in the world
HEDONISM

- Led by Epicurus
- End goal of life is acquiring pleasure
- “life is all about obtaining and indulging in pleasure because life is limitd”
- “eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die”
- Does not buy any notion of afterlife just like the materialists

STOICISM

- Led by Epicurus
- Learn to distance oneself and be apathetic
- Apatheia means to be indifferent
- Happiness can only be attained by a careful practice of apathy
- Some things are not within our control

THEISM

- The ultimate basis of happiness is the communion with God

- “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an
intelligent and powerful Being” – Isaac Newton
- “The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” – Soren
Kiergkegaard

HUMANISM

- Espouses the freedom of man to carve his own destiny and to legislate his own laws, free from the shackles of a God that
monitors and controls
- Man is the captain of his own ship
- Individuals who are in control of themselves and the outside world

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND GOOD LIFE

- S&T is also the movement towards good life

- S&T are one of the highest expressions of human faculties
- S&T allow us to thrive and flourish if we desire it
- S&T may corrupt a person
- S&T with virtue can help an individual to be out of danger

HUMAN FLOURISHING

What is Happiness?

- In psychology, happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being which can be defined by, among others, positive or
pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy
- To behaviorists, happiness is a cocktail of emotions we experience when we do something good or positive
- To neurologists, happiness is the experience of a flood of hormones released in the brain as a reward for behavior that
prolongs survival

Flourishing

- A state where people experience positive emotions, positive psychological functioning and positive social functioning, most
of the time, living, within an optimal range of human functioning

IS HAPPINESS A DESTINATION OR A JOURNEY?

- The hedonistic view of well-being is that happiness is the polar opposite of suffering; the presence of happiness indicates
the absence of pain. Because of this, hedonists believe that the purpose of life is to maximize happiness, which minimizes
misery.
- Eudaimonia, a term that combines the Greek words for “good” and “spirit” to describe the ideology. Eudaimonia defines
happiness as the pursuit of becoming a better person. Eudaimonists do this by challenging themselves intellectually or by
engaging in activities that make them spiritually richer people.

HUMAN FLOURISHING

 Eudaimonia, “good spirited”, a term coined by Greek philosopher, Aristotle (385-323 BC)
  Describes the pinnacle of happiness that is attainable by humans
 Eudaimonia translated into human flourishing; a contented state of being happy and healthy and prosperous

NICHOMACHEAN ETHICS

 The name formally given to Aristotle’s best known work on ethics

 It is also the most influential book of the moral philosophy

ARISTOTLE’S HUMAN FLOURISHING:

- Is a result of different components such as: phronesis, friendship, wealth and power
Phronesis – to achieve and end; to deliver change; to enhance a life

SOCIETAL CHANGE – changes ELEMENTS of human flourishing – comfortable life, travel, more products, more money

Man of the World – Global Neighborhood – COMPETITION as a means of SURVIVAL – COORDINATION new TREND

WESTERN CIVILIZATION – INDIVIDUAL

EASTERN CIVILIZATION – COMMUNITY-CENTRIC

Eastern vs Western conception regarding society and human flourishing

EASTERN CONCEPTION

 Focus is community-centric
 Individual should sacrifice himself for the sake of society
 Chinese Confucian system
 Japanese Bushido
 Encourage studies of literature, sciences, and art for a greater cause

WESTERN CONCEPTION

 More focused on the individual

 Human flourishing as an end
 Aristotelian view
 Aims for Eudaimonia as the ultimate good

CHINESE CONFUCIAN SYSTEM

Confucianism – order would return to China if society was organized around five basic, human relationships

- The oldest philosophy

- Belief system based on teaching of K’ung Fu Tzu (Confucius)
- It is philosophy rather than religion
- Based on the following principles:

*Use right relationship to produce social order

*Respect family and older generations

*Educate individuals and society

*Act in morally correct way

- Confucianism lost its influence in 200 A.D.

- Was reborn again in 600s A.D; blended with Buddhism and Daoism; became known as Neo-Confucianism

BUSHIDO

- “way of the warrior,” is a Japanese code of conduct and a way of life, associated with the Samurai, and loosely analogous
to the Western concept of chivalry. It is also known as the Samurai code and was influenced by the teachings of Zen
Buddhism as well as Confucianism
- It played an important role in the dissemination of moral virtue and the moral edification of Japanese society
ST AND HUMAN FLOURISHING

Martin Heidegger

- Technology is a human activity that we excel in as a result of achieving science

- Technology continuous to exist because of the brilliance, creativeness and the power of mind

SCIENCE AS METHOD AND RESULTS

- In a pedestal untouchable by other institutions

- Sole claim to Reason and Empiricism
- 2 distinct features Experimentation and Empiricism: Give science edge over other schools of thought

HOW TO DO SCIENCE:

Observe – Determine the problem – Formulate hypothesis – Conduct experiment – Gather and analyze – Formulate conclusion and
provide recommendation

VERIFICATION THEORY

 Earliest criterion that distinguishes Philosophy and Science

 Proposes that a discipline is a Science if it can be confirmed or interpreted in the event of alternative hypothesis being
accepted
 Gives premium to empiricism
 Takes into account results that are measurable and experiments which are repeatable
 Group of scholars, believed that only those which can be observe should be regarded as MEANINGFUL and REJECT those
which cannot be directly accessed as MEANINGLESS (VIENNA CIRCLE AND LOGICAL POSITIVISM)
 Einstein’s Gravitational Waves: gravitation is not responsible for people falling inlove
 Erwin Schrodinger – Quantum Mechanics
 Astrology
 Verification Theory is already biased, because on already has some sort of expectations on what to find

EVIDENCE AND THEORY (Thomas Kuhn)

- On bridging the gap

FALSIFICATION THEORY

Falsifiability – another way to distinguish science from pseudoscience (e.g., astronomy from astrology), first formally discussed by
Karl Popper in 1919-20 and reformulated by him in the 1960s, is falsifiability

- This principle states that in order to be useful (or even scientific at all), a scientific statement (‘fact’, theory, ‘law’, principle,
etc) must be falsifiable, that is, able to be tested and proven wrong.

SCIENCE AS A SOCIAL ENDEAVOR

 It perpetuates a dimension which generally benefits the society

 Manifestation of shared experiences forging solidarity over communities
 Uncontacted tribes also known as isolated people or lost tribes
 Mostly found in South America, Central Africa and New Guinea

Number of Uncintacted Tribes

Amazon region – 100

Papua – 10

India – 1

Paraguay – 1

SCIENCE AND RESULTS

 Results are not always reliable

 Science does not monopolize the claim for definite results
SCIENCE AS EDUCATION

 There are experiments have lost objectivity and thus credence have lost
 There are people who prefer science-inclined students over those who are less adept
 Entrance exam in High School and College students have parts dedicated to Science and Mathematics
 STEM is more popular, Accountancy and Business is closed second
 Educational System can hone and preserve student’s capacity to entertain other options
 Reinforce imagination, and allow some level of unorthodoxy
 Aristotle’s Eudaimonia; Person is required to be knowledgeable about Science, among other things of equal importance
 Like linguistic, kinetic, artistic and socio-civic

PAUL FEYERABEND

 ‘Anarchhist’ philosopher – “Anything goes”

 Science not objective, disinterested or detached
 Not superior to other types of knowledge, which also achieve reliable results
No prescribed method to which all scientists adhere
 No need for (or real means of) demarcating between science and pseudoscience

MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

 The 8 goals with measurable targets and clear deadlines improving the lives of the world’s poorest people.
 Leaders of 189 countries signed the historic millennium declaration of the UN in the year 2000
1. REDUCE POVERTY AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION
2. ACHIEVE UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION
3. PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWER WOMEN
4. REDUCE CHILD MORTALITY
5. IMPROVE MATERNAL HEALTH
6. COMBAT HIV/AIDS AND TUBERCULOSIS
7. ENSURE ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
8. PARTNERSHIP FOR DEVELOPMENT

HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?

 Growth is the primary indicator of development

 Growth is not infinite. Too much growth consumes our country’s resource
 The rapid pace of technological growth – allows no room for nature to recuperate resulting in exploitation and irreversible
damage to nature
 Joseph Hickel – contemplated on suggesting that developed countries should not pushed more growth but adapt
development or else everybody loses.